Vice President Dick Cheney awards the Silver Star Medal to Army Specialist Monica Brown of Lake Jackson, Texas Thursday, March 20, 2008, following a dinner with U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. While serving as a combat medic in April of 2007, Spc. Brown, 19, showed extraordinary heroism when she used her body to shield wounded soldiers from enemy gunfire and mortar shelling, then moving them to safety after their convoy came under attack in Afghanistans eastern Paktia province. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star. White House photo by David Bohrer